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We can improve resiliency, health, and quality of life by growing our own vegetables locally. Many of the vegetables commonly grown in backyard gardens, such as lettuce, tomatoes, and carrots ,are great sources of vitamins and minerals but are not as high in energy content as measured by calories. Much of our daily caloric needs come from staple grains (wheat, corn, rice) which are difficult to produce from a backyard garden due to the time, space, and effort required. Fortunately the potato is an energy dense vegetable with many advantages for the part-time gardener, including:

Easy and rewarding to grow
Store well with minimal effort
Nutritious source of carbohydrates as well as fiber, vitamins, and minerals.
Simple to prepare
Homegrown potatoes taste great!

Growing Your Own Potatoes

Why Grow Your Own Potatoes?

Easy and rewarding to grow
Store well with minimal effort
Nutritious source of carbohydrates as well as fiber, vitamins, and minerals.
Simple to prepare
Homegrown potatoes taste great!

Running an Inverter off a Prius for Backup Power

The experiences of extended power outages of up to a week due to past ice storms in New England showed that my household systems were fairly resilient. I normally use wood for heat and propane for cooking, neither requiring electricity. The town water system that supplies my household has a backup generator at the treatment plant, and my onsite septic system is gravity-only. Minor loads such as a radio and lights can be powered by rechargeable batteries or a small inverter in my truck. However, the inability to operate my refrigerator/freezer during an extended power loss, while not a matter of survival, was a significant inconvenience. Protecting the year's supply of frozen vegetables and chicken produced from my backyard was desirable, especially during warmer months when food cannot simply be placed outside in the snow.

Running an Inverter off a Prius for Backup Power

Extending the Harvest in Your Home Garden

One way to improve resiliency as well as quality of life is to grow your own vegetables locally. However, gardeners in northern climates are especially challenged by limited growing seasons. In this brief article I will show examples of how to easily extend and preserve the harvest and have fun doing it.

Why Extend Your Harvest?

Presently we can drive to the supermarket to get nearly anything we want even in winter. The fresh fruits and vegetables we see have often been grown thousands of miles away in a tropical climate and flown in using a lot of energy may not be so cheap or plentiful in the future. As well as potentially reducing dependence on energy, extending the harvest of your own foods has advantages including:

Less work and simpler than preserving by canning or freezing
Fresher, higher quality than canned
Less expensive than supermarket
Increased resiliency with the option to of a local food source
Controlling your own food sources is more pleasurable and rewarding

Extending the Harvest in Your Home Garden

Why Extend Your Harvest?

Less work and simpler than preserving by canning or freezing
Fresher, higher quality than canned
Less expensive than supermarket
Increased resiliency with the option to of a local food source
Controlling your own food sources is more pleasurable and rewarding

Raising Your Own Chickens

A major theme of this site is improving resiliency and preparing for a different future than we may be used to at present. One good way that is receiving growing interest is keeping your own chickens for eggs or meat. In this brief article, I will show that raising chickens is fun, easy, and provides many benefits, regardless of the need to prepare for the potential risks of Peak Oil or economic downturns.

There are many great resources on chickens already out there, with more detailed information than can be contained in this article. I’ll just highlight the basics here and share some of my personal experiences that have been successful.